Q without U

Almost all Australians recognize the word, Qantas, one of very few words in the English language where it’s correct to have a Q without a following U. It’s the third oldest airline in the world founded in November 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, but The Flying Kangaroo, has been known as Qantas for a long time now.

13 April was National Scrabble Day, and in honor of all those people who have thrown their tiles across the room when they drew a Q and no U, Plugged In has provided a list of nine genuine scrabble approved words with a Q and no U. They even give you their scrabble scores!

Qi, Qat, Faqir, Qwerty, Qaid, Qadi, Sheqel, Qindar, and Qoph.

And here I’d always thought sheqel was spelled shekel. Sigh.

For their meanings, scrabble scores and more details see: https://au.games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/9-perfectly-legal--scrabble--words-that-use-q-but-not-u-195802589.html

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

12 Letters That Didn't Make it into the Alphabet

I can actually remember seeing old books with the long S used on covers and in illustrations, back when I was a small child. Since the long S and the short s are both pronounced identically, it gradually disappeared during the nineteenth century. (No, I wasn’t alive in the nineteenth century!)

Ash, the A and E joined together, was also still seen occasionally when I was a child. And as for the Ampersand, he’s still very much around. But most of the others are quite fascinating, and each has its own story.

Happy reading.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31904/12-letters-didnt-make-alphabet

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.